Atomically perfect torn graphene edges and their reversible reconstruction

Kwanpyo Kim, Sinisa Coh, C Kisielowski, M. F. Crommie, Steven G. Louie, Marvin L. Cohen and A. Zettl ()
Additional contact information
Kwanpyo Kim: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Sinisa Coh: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
C Kisielowski: National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
M. F. Crommie: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Steven G. Louie: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Marvin L. Cohen: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
A. Zettl: University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract The atomic structure of graphene edges is critical in determining the electrical, magnetic and chemical properties of truncated graphene structures, notably nanoribbons. Unfortunately, graphene edges are typically far from ideal and suffer from atomic-scale defects, structural distortion and unintended chemical functionalization, leading to unpredictable properties. Here we report that graphene edges fabricated by electron beam-initiated mechanical rupture or tearing in high vacuum are clean and largely atomically perfect, oriented in either the armchair or zigzag direction. We demonstrate, via aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy, reversible and extended pentagon–heptagon (5–7) reconstruction at zigzag edges, and explore experimentally and theoretically the dynamics of the transitions between configuration states. Good theoretical-experimental agreement is found for the flipping rates between 5–7 and 6–6 zigzag edge states. Our study demonstrates that simple ripping is remarkably effective in producing atomically clean, ideal terminations, thus providing a valuable tool for realizing atomically tailored graphene and facilitating meaningful experimental study.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3723 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3723

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3723

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().